MPSG event 2016: The Musical Humanism of the Renaissance and Its Legacy

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We are delighted to announce that *online registration is now open* for the conference ‘The Musical Humanism of the Renaissance and Its Legacy’, a University of Warwick conference to be held at Warwick’s Palazzo Papafava, Venice, on 2-4 June 2016. The event is in collaboration with the Royal Musical Association Music and Philosophy Study Group.

Theme: In modern Western culture, music is often defined as the art of feeling or the language of the soul. This conception of music has its origins in the musical humanism of the Renaissance, whose influence on musical thought was as enduring as it was widespread. Even though Renaissance humanism had no concrete link to the musical practice of antiquity, humanistic concerns were pivotal for the development of contemporary music and musical thought. Ancient and medieval stories about musical ethos, in particular about the power of music to move the passions, were of special interest to Renaissance scholars. This conference will investigate these Renaissance conceptions of the connection between music and mind, their origins, and how they were ultimately developed into our modern notion of music as an expressive art.